


The Invitation.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Series: Petya 'verse - All Petya Vorkosigan Fics [22]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe, Nepotism, Time Period: Reign of Gregor Vorbarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-20
Updated: 2011-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guy Allegre briefs Duv Galeni about the dinner party invitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Invitation.

It's coming on the end of Duv's shift when Guy enters the analysts's cave and signals to Duv.

"Not an emergency," he says, but he leads Duv into his office nearby anyway. Not an emergency, but clearly a private conversation. "I just need to prepare you for something."

Guy has that look in his eye like he's had a hundred times before, ever since he'd taken Duv to the side on Komarr and started pushing and prodding him here and there. Giving him polish, Guy had said. The General's pet Komarran, others had said. But that's Duv's career in a nutshell anyway, so as long as no one is slandering him with how he's keeping the General's attentions, Duv just ignores it, the way he's ignored worse.

"Prepare me for what?" Duv asks.

"You're going to be receiving an invitation from Piotr Vorkosigan," Guy says.

Duv blinks. He congratulates himself on only letting out that much of a reaction.

Guy is grinning. It's bizarre. Not completely unlike him, but enough unlike him for it to send warning bells clanging in Duv's head. But it couldn't be something bad. Not with Guy acknowledging that facial expressions are often linked to emotions. "It's not precisely an official invitation from Vorkosigan House," Guy elaborates, and Duv remembers all those little etiquette niceties that he'd had to learn when he'd become the head of ImpSec Earth. There's a severe distinction here. "But it's an invitation from a Vorkosigan."

"I'm getting a private invitation from Lord Vorkosigan?" Duv asks, just to make this clear.

Guy nods. "A private dinner. Very small. I volunteered your name to him. You get on well with his brother, don't you?"

Well... somewhat well. Well enough. But that's Miles Vorkosigan. The younger, the spare, the maniac. Not the Butcher's heir. Not the one who Duv had witnessed undergoing an interrogation and torture scenario, run by instructors claiming the names of people Duv had known when he was fighting in the Revolt -- in the _wrong side_ of the Revolt. "Well enough," Duv ventures.

"Yes, I know Piotr made a vivid first impression," Guy says. "I won't try to tell you Piotr's harmless, because he isn't. He has a Ministry, the ear of the Emperor, and he's a Vorkosigan on top of that. He's also a maniac about history. I think you two would get on well."

Uh-huh. And so Guy's arranging an introduction? No, this is a briefing about an upcoming invitation. To a small, private dinner, that Guy already knows about, and helped Lord Vorkosigan put together a guest list for it. Duv thinks he begins to see.

"I see," Duv says. This private invitation from Lord Vorkosigan to dine with him isn't an invitation to Duv, it's an invitation to Guy. Who invited along Duv. Because Duv's a historian and Lord Vorkosigan likes history. Duv has to admire the amount of sheer bloody-mindedness that goes into Vor mating rituals. On the other hand, he muses, it probably does wonders for their tiny nepotistic system, if they keep requiring people to be chaperones. And it's probably, he considers, all tied in with the importance placed on formal witnessing.

Guy nods at him. "Yes, I thought you might. The only other guest will be Commodore Arthur Vorinnis. Piotr said that Vorinnis recalled you fondly from your Academy days."

Duv could groan. Yes, he remembers Commodore Vorinnis and his interest in him. Commodore Vorinnis, _the Emperor's uncle_. Duv had been overjoyed to find that the history department at the Academy wasn't shoveling horseshit or glossing over horrible tragedies as being glorious tragedies instead. It hadn't even been as unendingly focused on military history as Duv had expected and prepared for before he had even applied. Duv had been happy to use up his free time discussing his thesis with Vorinnis, until a classmate had helpfully provided a brief family tree for him.

"It's very... Vorish," Duv says dubiously.

"It's how Piotr does things," Guy says, "and my family's customs aren't dissimilar. We had a few generations of armsmen before our disgrace."

Yes, because Duv might have been a Komarran revolutionary, but Guy's great-uncle restrained a Vorbarra prince while Mad Emperor Yuri gutted him. Duv's heard several variations of the story since he met Guy, and each time, Duv wonders about the nature and the limitations of Vor forgiveness and Vor vengeance.

"About that," Duv says, because he wouldn't be ImpSec if he didn't try to follow that line of interrogation.

"Of course Piotr knows," Guy says. "Same as how I know that his great-grandfather and his grandfather executed my uncle. And his father probably watched. But it's ancient history. We're never going to be armsmen again, but that's a minor sacrifice."

No, they're not going to be armsmen. They're going to have honorable courtships with the Vor instead.

Duv thinks, for the millionth time, that he is never going to understand Barrayar.

But there's at least some progress being made. He thinks he understands how Guy and Vorkosigan are going about this, that they're using the forms to prove that this is something honorable and not by its very nature scandalous and unworthy, because Vorkosigan is treating Guy like an equal, like he's Vor and has honor that the Vor acknowledge is real honor, not honor they can ride over and completely ignore. Half of things becoming acceptable is people insisting on treating them as if they are, and bending reality to fit. So if a Vorkosigan has a proper courtship with a prole, then it's all well and proper. Because you're not going to accuse a Vorkosigan of being dishonorable, are you? Men who publicly doubt Vorkosigan honor tend to be publicly executed.

Duv supposes that he might be panicking here. Just a little. But it's an invitation from a Vorkosigan. It may not be an official invitation, but it's still not something he can refuse.

But, he reminds himself, he came here for a purpose. He came here for the politics. Because if you want to rise, you need capital duty. You need to see and been seen, you need to play the Vor game until they forget you aren't Vor.

Historical, cultural Vorbarr Sultana! Come for the career opportunities, stay for the political intrigue. Come to Vorbarr Sultana, and within six months, fall in love with a woman, attend a party at the Imperial Residence, meet the Emperor, lose the woman you love to the Emperor, and along the way, find yourself falling into the Vorkosigan spider web. First Miles Vorkosigan, but that's manageable; the man's a maniac and a mutant, so the historian in Duv finds it absolutely fascinating to watch how Miles manages to navigate his way through this minefield. And now Guy's trying to get Piotr Vorkosigan's fingers into Duv as part of some far too convoluted idea of how the concept of dating works.

The capital is supposed to be the post you angle for if you have career or political ambitions, but this is so very far from what Duv had been expecting.

But, Duv considers, if he can manage a dinner with Lord Vorkosigan, without scandal, with civility, and without a tirade to another Vorkosigan about Emperors and their unfair advantages in dating, he'll know for sure that he can handle anything this planet throws at him.

And he can handle anything Barrayar throws at him. Even Vorkosigan Lords and ImpSec Generals.


End file.
